The East Coast Railway (ECoR) with its headquarters in Bhubaneswar became fully operational on April 1, 2003. It covers 27 out of 30 districts of the State along with three districts each of Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
At the time of its creation, the ECoR was considered to be the least important of the three zones that came out of the South Eastern Railway. Today, the ECoR is the second highest freight loading railway in the country and poised to occupy the first position from the next financial year itself.
The zone is focused on freight business which earns its bread and butter. Augmentation of section capacity for running of more trains is being achieved through doubling, automatic signalling, third line and lastly quadruple line. Doubling works in many areas are in progress, and it is expected that by the time the ECoR celebrates its silver jubilee almost the entire system will be completely doubled. Some stretches will have third and even quadruple lines.
Automatic signalling works are in progress in two stretches and the remaining single line sections presently undergoing doubling will also be covered under automatic signalling over the next 15 years in two phases. Progress of sanctioned works pertaining to new lines will depend on encumbrance free land being made available by the State Governments and funds by the Railways.
The Odisha Government-sponsored Dedicated Coal and Iron Ore Corridors covering Talcher and Nayagarh areas will open up the coal and iron ore sectors and generate a total traffic of over 100 MT. The Wagon Manufacturing Factory at Sitaphali and the Wagon Repair Workshop at Kantabanji are expected to help the ECoR become totally self-sufficient in freight operations.
With many major minerals-based plants with many more in pipeline, over a hundred new sidings, two major ports and new ports being planned the sky is virtually the limit for the ECoR’s freight operations potential. The Talcher coalfields alone will see tripling of freight movement volumes in near future.
The ECoR has drawn up ambitious plans for completely revamping the Bhubaneswar and Puri station buildings and providing world-class facilities and plans are on to complete them by June 2015 before the Nabakalebar festival of lord Jagannath. The State Government has expressed its willingness to financially participate in both these projects.
Expansion of the present coaching complex in Bhubaneswar and a mega coaching complex between Mancheswar and Barang are already under implementation in phases. Maltipatpur next to Puri is expected to come up as a satellite terminal once the present Puri station gets fully saturated.
In 15 years, the ECoR is expected to end up with an operating ratio of around 30%, which means that for every one rupee earned our expenditure will be 30 paise.
(The writer is the general manager of ECoR which is completing 10 years of operation on April 1 this year)
